How the cloud is helping the design community

For years, the end of the traditional nine to five job has been heralded by tech geeks keen to use technology to streamline their working process. Many of the technological advances of the last three decades have been assimilated into the workplace with relative ease, and with minor disruption to the work life status quo.  The hot and sticky commutes, magnetic pull of the office desk and punch in and out of micro management have won out. In the last few years, with the creation of the cloud, the trumpets are blaring again for the rules of work to change.

Simply put, the cloud is an internet based tool. It allows people to store, share and amend documents in a collaborative way from wherever they are in the world. The cloud is revolutionising how the global design community operates and beyond these early adopters has huge implication for cross continental collaboration, and indeed for work life balance generally.

What does the cloud allow designers to do?

Store – Sites such as Basecamp and Huddle allow you to upload documents, presentations and creative files to their servers. This means that your own computer does not get slowed down by the amount of data it stores. It provides a cost effective back-up system for you and allows you – and indeed others – to access work from all over the world.

Share – The big advantage of using cloud sites is that it allows others to access your work. Rather than sending huge emails bound to clog up systems and computer memory, simply log onto Basecamp or Huddle and view the documents there. Working in this environment, you need not worry about a missed email again. Cloud technology allows you access to the most up to date document at any time.

Create – The implications of storing and sharing data is massive for the design community. This virtual world allows them to view the work of colleagues, comment on it, brainstorm ideas, collaborate with other designers and hone and refine work all from the comfort of whatever location they are currently at. Be in Suffolk in their pyjamas or Copacabana Beach in shorts, the design team can still see and collaborate on projects.

Communicate - Both Basecamp and Huddle offer the opportunity to communicate with others via a conference call or indeed via remote video conference. Again, this is revolutionary. While all this technology is available in different places, the beauty of the cloud is that it is brought together under one roof as a virtual office.  This is a fantastic opportunity for designers. The hours spent travelling to meetings can be used completing client briefs and trying for a shorter working day.

The cloud works on a smaller scale too. Sites like Campaign Monitor and Litmus allow email marketers to log in and amend campaigns, lists and newsletters from different locations. Again, others can collaborate with this process and ensure that email newsletters are the best they can be before sent out.

Most big cloud collaboration sites like the ones mentioned have modest registration or usage fees. For such a low price, a new way of working is open to designers. From local to global campaigns, from colleagues to collaborators, from brainstorm to delivery – cloud technology will revolutionise how design is developed and delivered.